Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/424

 It comes in swellings of the heart and tears

That rise at noble and at gentle deeds—

At labors of the master-artist's hand

Which, trembling, touches to a finer end,

Trembling before an image seen within.

It comes in moments of heroic love,

Unjealous joy in joy not made for us—

In conscious triumph of the good within

Making us worship goodness that rebukes.

Even our failures are a prophecy,

Even our yearnings and our bitter tears

After that fair and true we cannot grasp;

As patriots who seem to die in vain

Make liberty more sacred by their pangs.

Presentiment of better things on earth

Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls

To admiration, self-renouncing love,

Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one,—

Sweeps like the sense of vastness, when at night

We hear the roll and dash of waves that break

Nearer and nearer with the rushing tide,

Which rises to the level of the cliff

Because the wide Atlantic rolls behind,

Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs.

1865